How do you work accuarately in Archicad?

[Anonymous]

As an ex Revit user and a new Archicad user, I am butting my head up against a number of things while I come to grips with Archicad's peculiarities. That is not to say that Revit doesn't have its own peculiarities but I have come to terms with those. But really some of those peculiarities have led me to Archicad.
Revit has a function where if you pick on an object, some temporary dimensions will appear and if you click on one of these dimensions, you can change the value and your object will move accordingly. This makes it very easy to sketch out layouts and adjust them afterward. Now of course, you can't do this in the same way in Archicad. If I place an object randomly in Archicad, I may get a dimension from another object for example which is 6'-1 63/64". If I move the object 1/64", the dimension will display 6'-2". All seems good but it may not be. My object in reality may have been at 6'-1 127/128" and has now moved to 6'-2 1/128". The tolerance setting of 1/64" makes it look like the location is correct. Attached is an image of a small project within which such a scenario is taking place. I have tried moving everything slightly but having no luck. Obviously the locations of the windows are slightly off which produces an error at the end of the dimension string. I suppose I could change the dimension settings to decimal with the largest place settings and perhaps find the problem but it raises a larger question. Since there is no way to tell if given dimension is off by an amount lower than the dimension tolerance, how does one assure that objects are accurately placed.
Don't tell me to fudge the dimension because that is NEVER a good idea.
Do you work with snaps on all the time? I would need them set to 1/8" as that is a regularly occurring fraction for me.
Do I never place anything randomly but always using the input box to enter an appropriate number?
Some other workflow?
Looking for some input here.
Kris

[Karl Ottenstein]

You can NEVER 'sketch...randomly' in ARCHICAD. You will run into what you have experienced. It will be more work to ever get wall lengths, angles, etc correct than to just re-model properly.

You must use the Tracker (or the older Coordinate Palette) as you place or adjust elements. Enter the exact number that you want, and it will be that.

You can NEVER just look at the Tracker, as you look at temporary dimensions in Revit, and "see" a value and click and expect it to actually be that value - unless you've snapped to a hotspot on another element.

I've never used grid snap, and find it an interference to working. Some types of construction, it will make sense of course. Accidentally turning grid snap on is a common beginner mistake resulting in elements that are not the desired size. Modeling precisely - and then snapping to hotspots of existing elements - will guarantee your success.

[Richard Morrison]

Personally, I don't think there is anything wrong with setting the construction grid or snap grid to 1/8". I don't think you will find this intrusive. If you plan to use Nudge a lot, you might set the snap grid to your desired nudge (maybe 1/2" or 1"), and then set the construction grid to 1/8". You can have either or both on at the same time. This should prevent you from having to deal with 1/64" discrepancies, as long as your entities aren't using them, either. However, I should mention that it is sometimes easy to turn off snaps inadvertently, so Karl's suggestion of using the tracker religiously is well taken.

[Anonymous]

Useful comments from both of you. Thanks.
Kris